Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
When the Russian nuclear reactor at Chernobyl blew the roof off its containment building and
burned out of control for several weeks, it spread many tons of radioactive contamination over
large parts of Russia and many other European countries. By a factor of 100:1, the radioactive
materials injected into the environment from this single nuclear reactor accident exceeded the
combined amounts of radioactive contamination released by the Nagasaki and Hiroshima
bombs! (Greenpeace 2006, 8). Immediately following the Chernobyl accident, 237 people
suffered from acute radiation sickness, and only 31 of them died within the first three months,
which on the surface does not seem that bad. However, a small industrial city was abandoned
(Pripyat), 336,000 people had to be relocated, and the entire Northern Hemisphere was contam-
inated with increased levels of radiation, including serious contamination in thirteen different
European countries, the worst of it falling on Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus. The most recent
epidemiological evidence, published under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Science,
suggests that in the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus alone, the Chernobyl accident resulted in an
additional estimated 212,000 deaths between 1990 and 2004, and nearly 1 million people
worldwide. It has also been estimated that the Chernobyl radiation contamination caused
roughly 3 million people to suffer significant health problems such as cancers, tumor, sup-
pressed immune system response, birth defects, and chronic fatigue (Greenpeace 2006 and Vid-
al 2011).
After a partial reactor-core meltdown caused the evacuation of all personnel from the U.S.
nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island, it was three days before American officials were certain
that this reactor was not going to burst its containment vessel and contaminate a huge geo-
graphical area in much the same way as the Russian reactor in Chernobyl later did. It has been
said that if a World War II-style war were to break out in Europe today, and not a single nucle-
ar weapon was detonated, the destruction of Europe's nuclear power plants by conventional
bombs would render all of Europe uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years! I am not trying
to scare anyone, but I do wish to provide my readers with a commonsense understanding of the
various types of nuclear threats, and offer concise practical information that could help them
make rational life-saving decisions should they ever find themselves in the unfortunate situ-
ation of being nearby, or downwind from, a nuclear disaster.
Roughly one-third of all Americans live within fifty miles of a nuclear power plant. Since
an EMP or super solar storm has significant potential to start a chain of events in practically
any nuclear power plant in the world that could be quite similar to what happened at the
Fukushima reactor complex, this chapter provides important information about preparing for,
